Blog: Agile & Business

Scrum Success Story

December 11, 2009

We hear a lot about all the problems of life. People are bad. Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. (Help me W. B. Yeats, you’re my only hope.) Today I would like to share an unsolicited note: Jeff Sutherland and I are doing a CSM class next week (Dec. 15 through Dec. 16) in […]

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The best work?

December 10, 2009

I just received an email in which the writer said their group does not have a real project-type project. This got me thinking. Key idea: How do we know our Agile teams are getting the most important stuff to work on? It seems to me we have the theory that, magically, “the users” will always […]

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Scrum Tools

December 8, 2009

Revised slightly: 6/19/2021 A course attendee asked about Scrum tools. First, in the Agile manifesto it says, “Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools.” Naturally, being geeks, the first thing we want to talk about in or after the course is [drumroll…] tools. We have to have a sense of humor about this. First, I […]

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Getting Senior Buy-in

December 7, 2009

Questioner: How do I sell my executive team on doing this stuff? Jim Highsmith: Don’t. Just do it. They don’t know what you’re doing anyway. (This quote is also taken from “Fearless Change” by Rising and Manns. A great book, recommended. See Chapter 6.) I saw this Highsmith quote as a tagline on a Ron […]

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Is Scrum perfect?

December 4, 2009

Sometimes I want our Scrumming to be perfect. I want everyone to be happy, I want no arguments, I want maximum Business Value, no mistakes, no wasted time, no re-work, no stupid ideas, no misunderstanding what the customer wanted, no muss, no fuss, no confusion and no chaos. Then, I heard this song by Frank Sinatra: […]

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Why working software is important

December 4, 2009

In a recent discussion, Jeff Sutherland was talking about how important it was to have working software at the end of every Sprint. As a small part of that discussion, I suggested several reasons why working software (or what I call “done, done software”) is so important. Here is an excerpt from what I said […]

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Certified ScrumMaster Course with Jeff Sutherland Dec 15

December 4, 2009

I am next looking forward to doing a CSM course with Jeff Sutherland on Dec. 15 to 16. Should be lots of fun. I hope Jeff (or I) will take enough time to talk about “The Concept of Ba” by Takeuchi and Nonaka. I truly enjoy working with Jeff for lots of reasons. If you […]

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Some Agile Principles

November 30, 2009

Let’s discuss some agile principles. I often say the dance steps will be ugly if you don’t feel the music. There is a heated discussion now about the principles that underlie Scrum. I hope no one hurts himself.  By which I mean, in jest, that we often have the biggest fights about abstract things. On […]

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Ready to listen?

October 13, 2009

From Catherine Louis: I’m getting ready for a 4-day training session in Mt. Hood Oregon teaching new handlers how to work with their K9’s toward becoming an operational search and rescue team. One of the “Ahaaa!” moments in training is teaching the handlers how not to ignore the K9’s innate behavior. One very small example […]

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The doctrine of sufficiency

October 4, 2009

Agile and Scrum start with the assumption that a team is sufficient for the task set before it. This is a bit wacky, or an assumption subject to being false a lot, unless we allow the truth, which is that humans are very inventive. Thus, a given seven-member Scrum team can do many things to […]

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